The present invention relates generally to image processing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus which employ contractive transformations for representing images and compressing image data.
There is a collection of important problems related to the way in which computers and other digital devices deal with images. Broadly, this subject is referred to as "digital image processing," and covers the analysis, storage, and communication of images by means of digital devices. Four specific areas within the broad subject of digital image processing which are of particular interest are image compression, image representation, image recognition, and image analysis.
The present invention is applicable to all four of these areas. However, the issues involved in each area are extensive and complex. Therefore, only two of the areas, image compression and image recognition, will be discussed, to provide a background of the advantages of the present invention.